Playing for penalties

Over the past week and a half, I’ve watched a lot of MCAL soccer. Three of the four games I’ve covered have gone to overtime, with two of them going all the way through to a penalty-kick shootout. Over the course of this week and past playoffs, I’ve noticed that some teams want to score to avoid PKs while others don’t seem to worried about it. There’s another correlation the team that plays defense with the goal of getting to PKs usually seems to beat the team that goes all out trying to win the game before PKs.
I talked to both Marin Catholic coach Rob Funes and Redwood coach Jason Werner after Tuesday’s North Coast Section quarterfinal won by MC on penalties and both thought there was something to that.

“Experience and confidence makes a big difference,” Werner said, adding that his team was hoping to avoid another shootout loss while MC didn’t appear too concerned going into it.

It seems like the way a team approaches the overtime period carries over into their feelings about a shootout. First of all, the team that opts to play defense and hopes to counter accomplishes its goal of forcing PKs and therefore has a positive mindset and a feeling of success before the shootout. The team that really tries to win the game in sudden death perhaps has a negative emotion, failing to accomplish that goal and, on top of that, has probably has worn itself out exerting all that energy. I hate to say that because the fan in me wants teams to attack and go for the win, but hard results seem to suggest the other course of action is the more successful one.

I hate to single out Redwood because they played a fantastic game, but I’ve noticed the Giants have struggled in PKs over the past few years while MC and Branson in particular seem to thrive in that situation. The latter two teams have well-deserved reputations for being strong defensive teams and while maybe accusing them of playing deliberately to get to penalties would be unfair, saying that either team doesn’t really mind if the game ends in a shootout seems more than fair.

“It looked like (Redwood) wanted (to win it in OT) and we didn’t,” MC assistant coach Kelly Coffey said. “That’s not the case. We wanted them to go out there and win it but we were just so tired. Chasing around Brittany Schornstein, Leslie Hayden, Jenny Anderson and Ashley Langford makes you tired. But we also know we have a good keeper (Tess Hack) and knew she could do the job.”

Funes said that defending in overtime fits his team’s identity better.

“You look at opportunities throughout the game,” Funes said. “Redwood was more dangerous with their attack. We’re going to defend and counter. Our big thing is locking it down on defense.”

The lopsided success rate in penalties is not limited to high school girls soccer by any stretch. On the sport’s biggest stage, the same correlation holds true. As a long-time fan of the English national team, I’ve been watching them in the World Cup and the Euro Championships since Mexico ’86 and I have NEVER seen them win a penalty shootout. Never. It’s become such a huge monkey on their backs that fans can sense once it goes to penalties, that’s the end of the road. Germany, on the other hand, has an unreal record in penalties. It seems like they never lose, though I’m sure they must have done at some point.

So it remains to be seen, at least in NCS, which strategy will prove the better. In the MCAL final, Tam definitely went on the offensive and played to avoid penalties, admitting so after the game. The Hawks succeeded with 3 minutes left to spare when Julia Raney scored a golden goal to knock out Branson. The Bulls, while not exactly packing it in, were more than happy to see their fate decided on PKs if it came to that. But they had already won two shootouts that week so you couldn’t blame them for being confident.